Tag: Sheryl Sandberg

I recently returned from a family trip to Mendocino, a small town on the northern coast of California. It was lovely in all the ways you’d expect: unspoiled, rugged, breathtakingly beautiful…and, for our family, the added bonus of super-cool temperatures. Sun-worshippers, we are not! Anyways, part of the charm was its remoteness. We quickly realized *how* remote when we discovered our cottage had no wifi or cell coverage. I had no choice but to turn off Facebook and Twitter, focusing instead on the stack of books I’d thrown into the minivan.

I’m probably the LAST person in Silicon Valley to read Option B by Sheryl Sandberg. Friends had told me that it was quite good, and since she lives down the street and has kids in class with mine, I added it to my vacation reading pile – which is otherwise dominated by social justice books (these days, at least!). On a foggy Mendocino morning, I cracked it open, reading about her journey after losing her husband suddenly in 2015. Into her own personal narrative, she integrates research and lessons learned in facing adversity, building resilience and finding joy. In the midst of her grief, a good friend told her….

“Option A is not available. So let’s just kick the shit out of option B.”

Post-Eden: Option B

Church, we are living in the era of Option B, Biblically speaking. This broken and hurting world is NOT as God created it nor is it the way He wants it. Option A was Eden. This side of heaven, there will never be full shalom. But, that in no way means that we are meant to circle the wagons around our holy huddle and wait for the rapture. We are called to bring ‘up there’ to ‘down here’. The other book I read in Mendocino, was Love Mercy, by Lisa Samson. Given that Micah 6:8 has become my own mantra, I was keen to dive into the personal story of another believer trying to put this verse into practice. She writes about the moment God met her on the pages of Isaiah 58, solidifying her conviction that she was to orient her life around loving the least. She shares:

God keeps sending me this message because I keep doing a half-baked job of following. Expend your life on behalf of the poor? Expend means to be be worn-out, dried up, caved-in, broken-down, melted, sapped, burned & tattered.

I read that and paused. I am on the same journey, but what will it cost me? What is it going to ultimately lead me to? It still don’t fully know. But, I am more convinced than ever that it is time for a revival of love, mercy and justice. It is indeed time for the church to kick the shit out of Option B.

Swimsuit Season

So, part of the reason Mendocino sounded great is that I did NOT have to worry about being ‘swimsuit ready’ come June. With temps in the 50’s and 60’s, I stayed mostly in jeans and sweatshirts. No matter where you spend your summer, I can assure you that most moms out there watched the hilarious video by Kristin Hensley and Jen Smedley, “I Swimsuit Season So Hard.” It went viral, in part, because all women can identify with the crazy expectations modern life throws our way. And, let’s be honest, when you’re juggling ALL that and then someone wants to give you a lecture being ‘worn-out, dried up, caved in, broken-down, melted, sapped, burned and tattered’ for the poor…..I mean, seriously. It. Is. Too. Much.

But, faith doesn’t always make sense. Jesus makes these outlandish claims, like we are to lose our lives in order to find them. But, how do you do that and still pay your bills and raise your kids? What ‘exactly’ are moms meant to lose? Tell me. This chica needs details. I read these amazing books and blogs by the likes of Jen Hatmaker, Sarah Bessey and Rachel Held Evans. It looks and sounds so good, but how do you make it happen, a truly missional family and life? Do we go to Africa? Foster kids? Work in the inner city? Must everything we eat, drink and wear be fair trade? What happens if I suck at composting and my kids don’t want to donate their birthday money to charity? Seriously. Where do you draw the line? What does it all mean for a regular family, like ours, just trying to get from one day to the next? How do you make sure you’re stumbling forward in the right direction?

My TWO minivans (Not Option A)….

Don’t ask me for answers.

The “control-freak, Type-A, hoping to impress you” version of me would love to unveil my journey as a roadmap that others could follow. But, all I have is my story…a messy one, at that.

Exhibit A: In my last post, I shared how God opened doors for me to donate my car (I truly thought life and faith were all falling neatly into place.) Would you believe that my brand new car was recalled!?!?! As in…I CAN’T DRIVE IT!!!! For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been driving around a rental while my new minivan sits in the driveway. That was not Option A!

But, even in these headaches especially in the headaches, God is teaching me. It seems faith falling into place does not equate to life going smoothly.

Damn.

I’m not sure my messes and lessons will be helpful. But, I’m nonetheless going to walk through some of the lessons God has taught me since I began my journey, nearly one year ago, to *actually* live a Micah 6:8 life.

For the less ‘wordy’ types….here’s a diagram. But, suffice to say that those who truly love me and/or God will read to the end. (JK)

Lessons

I’m Privileged

Sorry, white, evangelical, upper-middle class American church – you’re not being persecuted. On the contrary, you’re privileged beyond what you fully realize (Note: central to understanding privilege is acknowledging our own blindness to it). The full extent of that privilege in my own life – born out of my race, nationality, education, income, etc., is what I’ve come to more fully understand and appreciate these last few months.

Research shows that people like me credit ourselves for fortunes, rather than factors outside our control. This hindsight bias, as economics professor Robert Frank explains in his book, Success and Luck, Good Fortune and The Myth of Meritocracy, describes our tendency to think, after the fact, that an event was predictable even when it wasn’t. A similar myth pervades much of Christianity, most blatant with proponents of the Prosperity Gospel. Even Christians who don’t ardently propagate such dogma, still outwardly praise God, while inwardly crediting ourselves. Naturally, we then rationalize stinginess with the rest of the world, citing laziness or bad decisions or immorality, etc., as the explanation for their misfortune. If we get the credit for successes, they conversely deserve the blame for failures. (Or so the logic goes.)

If Americans are good at either not seeing or not caring about suffering at home, they are even more indifferent to the injustices beyond our borders. Folks, concepts, such as manifest destiny, are not Biblical. Americans are not *entitled* to some material global hegemony or economic prosperity or made sacred by our mere desire to justify our excesses at the expense of or in the face of other’s need and suffering. Our brothers and sisters of every tribe and nation carry equal weight with our Father, and so too must they with us.

I’m Complicit

Remember high school? I’m turning 40 in a few weeks. My boys (ages 6 and 9) declared the other day in the car, that they did not believe I was EVER a kid. Precious, huh?!? Contrary to their belief, I can remember being young. Books were my BFF’s. I remember reading Emerson and Thoreau, finding an inner resonance and harmony between these great transcendentalist thinkers, my adolescent desire for independence and my sincere patriotic belief in American exceptionalism. I saw no conflict between these ideas and my faith, and there is a good reason for that.

The ‘American’ Christian mentality has made subtle but significant shifts overtime, elevating individualism far above the collective. (Note: the worth of an individual should not to be confused with Individualism as an ideology.) Even as Jesus came so that we might enter into an individual relationship with Him via the Holy Spirit, we recognize that Jesus came to save us all.

“For God so loved the WHOLE world, that He gave us only Son…”.

While we are saved individually, we are called collectively. Christ said we will be known by the love we have for one another, not for ourselves (John 13:35). Even the personhood of God testifies to a harmonious duality of One God in Three Persons.

So too must we look for a similar balance between the individual and the collective in our own faith. Sadly, individualism as an ideology within the church has facilitated an unholy indifference to entire communities, from people of color to immigrants to even the poor (and many more). I include the poor because I know most Christians bristle at the suggestion that they or their church don’t care about the poor. What church hasn’t organized a charity drive or two? The problem is that even as WASPY types publicly profess regret and even compassion, they privately support (sometimes consciously, sometimes not) the institutions and systems that perpetuate poverty and injustice.

This is not who we are. In Matthew 22:38-39, Jesus clarifies the essence of faith:

This is the first and greatest commandment (Love God).And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

To the natural follow-up question of ‘Who Is My Neighbor’ Jesus responds with the story of the Good Samaritan, which paints a picture of God’s heart for the oppressed, marginalized and forgotten. These days, we look a lot more like the Priest and the Levi than we do the Good Samaritan. The Bible is explicit in its call to love the least, calling out women, children, migrants, the poor, etc.

Sadly, American Evangelicals are quicker to wag a finger at individual failings than offer a hand to marginalized communities. By our own doing, we have projected ourselves into the public square, with our moral majorities and our compassionate conservatism. And, now that we are married into these often unholy alliances, we cannot wash our hands. To the vast majority of America and the rest of the world, being an evangelical means protecting our individual interests above the needs of the communities where we live.

Even before #45 (who has taken indifference to a whole new level), evangelicals consistently backed policies and politicians that too often help themselves at the expense of those already at a power disadvantage. To that end, Beth Moore recently tweeted:

“We keep empowering the powerful/equipping the equipped/saving the saved/feeding the full/helping the helped and we wonder why we’re unfulfilled.”

Even worse, we not only excuse, but as Judy Wu Dominick calls it, we Christianize our pagan practices. God help us. Thankfully, He does. And, writing about the alternative faith mindset and practice, author Erin Straza advocates what she calls a ‘Comfort Detox‘ (which also happens to be the title of her book. She writes:

“There is too much to do and too much brokenness in this world for any of God’s people to sit idle, amused by life pursuits that benefit only ourselves.”

A church that gives a damn about a world, cares more about meeting the need than counting the cost, loving the broken rather than admonishing the sinner….and, in the midst of it – seeing our OWN need and our own brokenness.

At the end of the day, the gospel is inherently about reconciliation of ALL things….not the well-behaved, polished or polite….but, the ‘as far as the East is from the West’ Redeemer of ALL.

I’m Called

Crap. This is rubber hitting the road. It isn’t easy. But, discipleship is key to spiritual wellness. And, in the same way that physical wellness requires effort (do those damn planks and try to like kale) – so does this effort require carving out space from our crazy lives. We all want a magic wand, to make the problems go away or to create more time. But, sometimes what we need is not a magic wand but an eraser. We have to let go of something else in order to make space for new practices and mindsets.

Resources

Read

I love to read. And, there is a growing library of literature on justice and/or faith. Truth be told, much of it’s been there for a looooong time (starting with my favorite, Old and New Testament scriptures!). But, once we find our bubbles, it’s astonishing how little we see outside. Even if you’re not ready to physically step into the margins, you can begin your journey as I did, with a book. I started with white, female Christian authors – women not that different from myself. But, overtime, I’ve found some of the most moving and perspective shifting lessons to be from people NOT like me…..people of color or people with a completely different life story and experience. So, even if you don’t pick a book off of my ‘Favorites’ List – please break your bubble and look beyond your own clan or comfort zone.

Favorite Scriptures

Isaiah 58

Matthew 25

Favorite Books

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

Born A Crime by Trevor Noah

The Tears We Cannot Stop by Michael Eric Dyson

Witnessing Whiteness by Shelly Tochluk

Searching for Sunday by Rachel Held Evans

Interrupted by Jen Hatmaker

Jesus Feminist by Sarah Bessey

Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People by Nadia Bolz-Weber

Favorite Folks to Follow – Twitter & Facebook

Some of these categories overlap but they nonetheless provide some categorization. And, this is also the tip of the iceberg! This is a large and growing community, that I was blind to till a couple years ago. It’s been like pulling back the curtain and discovering an entirely new universe.

Summer Reading

Assimilate or Go Home: Notes from a Failed Missionary on Rediscovering Faith by D.L. Mayfield

Roadmap to Reconciliation by Brenda Salter McNeil

Comfort Detox by Erin Straza

The Very Good Gospel by Lisa Sharon Harper

God and the Gay Christian by Matthew Vines

Slow Kingdom Coming by Kent Annan

Wake Up White by Debby Irving

Write

For Yourself

Sheryl Sandberg writes about the value of journaling, in her book, Option B. I’ve never been good at journaling. I start a journal, write for a few days, and soon completely forget about it, as To Do Lists and Cranky Kids overshadow the empty pages. I began blogging because it was a way to hold myself publicly accountable to this journey.

For Others

There’s a Japanese proverb that the nail that sticks up gets hammered down. Folks who go out on a limb, usually take a beating. #JenHatmaker It takes guts to call out injustice or speak truth to those with power or privilege. If you see someone taking a risk, say ‘thank you’. We need to be allies who stand first and foremost with those in the margins. And, next, we need to be allies to those who are advocating for others, be it a pastor teaching to his white congregation about racism and privilege or the young reporter writing in the wealthy town’s local newspaper about persistent poverty of neighbors next-door. And, as recent months have demonstrated during the current health care debate – your voice makes a difference. Call. Write. Tweet. We cannot afford to be silent.

Gather

It doesn’t feel like I’ve made much progress, but God help me – I was so blind, with so much to learn. And, thankfully, it’s been a year of wrestling and questioning and painful growing. Much of it began with a crazy invitation to a handful of girlfriends,

“Hey, would you be willing to meet regularly to study racism and white privilege with me?”

Amazingly, even though they’re all super busy moms with 101 things to do – they all said YES. And, so began a journey that has been broken and transformed all of us.

Go

At the beginning of this journey, roughly one year ago, I honestly didn’t know where God wanted me or what I was supposed to do. But, I could not stand before God and attest for my life, given the delta between what I KNEW the Bible taught about loving the least and what I was actually DOING about it. I needed to take going OUT into the world as seriously as took going to church each Sunday. I needed to take listen to the stories of marginalized or oppressed people as often as I listen to Christian radio (if not more!). I needed to get my head OUT of the books and blogs and INTO the margins I claimed to care so much about. It was time to check my Savior Complex at the door, and just humbly GO. Like the scales that fell from Saul’s eyes, once I walked through the door, there was no turning back….I could see with painful clarity the pain and suffering of so many. While many questions remain and I still feel woefully inadequate, God keeps calling ME back to a few groups.

WHO: People of Color, the Poor/Homeless, Immigrants, Children WHAT: Education, Social Justice and Anti-Poverty Service Organizations WHERE: Bay AreaHOW: Launch Community Equity Collaborative, Continue volunteering with Life Moves and Live Able

As a busy mom, trying to ferry kids to appointments and activities, it is easy to fall into ‘paralysis by analysis’. Seriously, there is a lot brokenness out there. Where do you start? How do you decide what issues to pursue or partners to work with? Here’s how I’ve made my choices:

Need

Read books, read your local paper, drive to the other side of town. Identify the areas of greatest need in your community. Here are categories frequently mentioned in the Bible that you can use as a lens when looking at your own community:

“Regardless of your theology, when there’s pain (ESPECIALLY in the margins) that’s always where the church should go first. Always”

The margins are holy places.

Effectiveness

Charity is a cheap substitute for justice, and God knows, many well intentioned charities have done more harm than good (Check out, When Helping Hurts). Pick organizations that are not only alleviating present needs but also working to knock down barriers and create better opportunities for future wellness. For your sake and the sake of the folks you’re trying to help, be smart in picking partners.

Gaps

What places are either my community or my church turning a blind eye too? How can I help fill that gap? Frankly, Evangelicals are largely MIA from the margins (POC, immigrants and LGBTQ folks are more common targets than recipients, recently!), so I highly recommend going with a humble heart, ready to listen, learn and help there. And, here’s the crazy thing about the least….even if we have to leave our usual church activities in order to love the least, the margins are where we find Jesus. As Jonathan Martin puts it,

“Theology that cuts you off from the messy reality of human experience ultimately alienates you from Christ, too.”

Looking back on my life, I’m struck by how desperately I’ve tried to sanitize my life when I actually should have been leaning into the mess of myself and others, for at the foot of the cross, we are all broken.

Schedule

What can I actually do? What days of the week or times of the day work for me? For me, with young kids and a husband who works long hours in Silicon Valley, my availability is while my kids at school. This is a marathon, not a sprint. I want to find new rhythms of life that can become my life-song for many years to come.

Last Shot

A few days ago, I saw Hamilton with my husband in San Francisco. Brilliant show at the beautiful and historic Orpheum Theater….which happens to be located in what can best be called, a ‘gritty’ part of town. Even my sincere desire to see worthiness in the homeless who encamp nearby, with their needles openly littering the ground and the stench of old urine hanging in the air – does not inoculate me to the deeply engrained norms of my lifelong privilege. If this blog sounds preachy, know that I preach to myself first and foremost. I still fall into my old ways of thinking, but I catch myself….I pivot. Bit by bit….that’s the only way.

There’s a refrain in Hamilton that is often repeated: “No, I’m not going to give away my shot.” And, this is the line that reverberates in my mind….I cannot give away my one shot at a Micah 6:8 life…for myself and for my family. I’m leaning that God isn’t asking me for the answers – just willingness to follow, one day at a time.

I’ve matured in my posture to Thoreau, since those high school days long ago. Though, there is much that still resonates, including this quote from Walden:

“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.”

We cannot say we value and love others and yet be unwilling to make significant exchanges to their end. Loving the least means taking your shot and kicking the shit out of Option B, no matter the cost. Ditch the bracelet. Pick up the cross.

Maybe your list is different. But, you have a list of celebrities that you’d love to have as your BFF’s….or, just hang out with for a day. I think many of my friends would have at least one of these people on their list. Joanna and Chip are so hilarious to watch; I feel the need to let them renovate my house, even though there’s nothing major that needs to be ‘fixed’. Jen Hatmaker looks like so much fun…I can totally see it….her coming over, probably with chips and salsa (or some other yummy, Southwestern/Texas treat) and us ‘clicking’ from day 1.

#SuperWoman

Oh, and don’t forget Michelle Obama and Melinda Gates – two strong women advocating for the rights of women and girls, using their position and power in admirable ways to fix what’s wrong in the world. What I’d give to jump on that bandwagon. Truly – I’d be in Africa passing out anti-malaria tents in a heartbeat, if I got to hang out with the likes of Melinda.

BELONG TOUR

There is something seductive about celebrity. I happen to adore everyone on this list. But, I’m trying to ground myself a bit, heading into a conference this weekend. I am attending the Belong Tour in San Jose. And, I am like a 6-year-old getting ready for their first trip to Disney. I AM PSYCHED! This Christian women’s conference brings headliners like Jen Hatmaker and Shauna Niequist together to inspire and teach women how to live ‘fun, faith-filled, purposeful’ lives. It is going to be awesome.

In my post, The Day After, I talked about what we do after the big event. And, this is true, even in noble pursuits, like a Christian conference. I definitely credit the women in this line-up for changing the conversation in faith circles, advocating generosity and justice, and showing us by example what it looks like to be vulnerable about the brokenness in our world…and, even in ourselves. Yet, the reality is that this (a conference) is not the end – this is just the beginning. For sure, we all need the ‘ra ra’ moments…the moments that will motivate and inspire. But, if I fail to take it one step further, I’ve done nothing truly spiritual. I may as well call it for what it is, a girls weekend. (Btw, there’s nothing wrong with girls weekends!)

LESS ‘RA RA’ – MORE CROSSES

Faith is not about the ‘ra ra’ moments – it’s about God coming into the messy moments. Ann Voskamp writes of an exchange with a homeless man, they invited to live with them:

The sun’s losing light as it edges across the floor. I can feel the world tilting a bit, its truth slipping right out and onto the floor between Gordon and me: Why do we rush to defend God to a broken world, and not race to defend the image of God in the world’s broken? Gordon’s eyes search mine. The light’s caught in his hair. Yeah, I’ve got no idea if he’s packing something, dealing something, trafficking something, but something holy’s caught in my throat. We’ve all got our crosses.

I love that. We’ve all got our crosses. What’s remarkable is that for so long, Christian culture has managed to stick a cross on everything….our Christian books, our Christian music, our Christian camps – even our churches. Yet, most of the time, it’s symbolic – we’ve cheapened our faith to the point of forgetting what the cross actually means. Let’s be honest. If you are hungry. If your parent(s) are in prison. If you have no roof over your head. If you are being trafficked. If your country is falling apart and you are a refugee. If your world is broken, you could care less about all the Christian conferences, camps, books, songs – you name it. You just want help. You just want someone to walk alongside you. You’ve got an actual cross.

Read these brutally honest words, written by Mickey Maudlin, Senior Vice President and Executive Editor at HarperOne:

Eventually the scales fell off and I had to confront the uncomfortable truth that perhaps evangelical churches, books, personalities and programs were the most popular because the movement was the most accommodated to consumer culture. Seeing evangelicalism as a populist movement, subject to fads and personality cults, fit with many of the dynamics I witnessed.

Somehow, we so quickly forget that the real treasure isn’t in best-sellers or the number of congregants in the pews, it’s something much better.

#ProofOfTheExistenceOfGod

OVER COFFEE AND CROISSANTS

Yesterday, two friends came over for brunch. We drank a pot of coffee, and ate a bag of croissants from Mademoiselle Colette. It was divine. But, the real treat was hearing their stories. One shared stories of building schools in South America, while the other talked of how visiting orphanages in Asia and Africa has changed the way her kids see the world. I can’t help but think that this is church. This is faith. These are holy moments.

My Jesus Calling devotion for today, is titled Be Willing to Follow. It says: “Some of My richest blessings are just around the bend: out of sight, but nonetheless very real. To receive these gifts, you must walk by faith – not by sight. It means subordinating the visible world to the invisible Shepherd of your soul.”

I have to be brutally honest with myself. How often has my heart been captured by my eyes? I am drawn in by the talent, the wealth, the intellect…. Like a shiny penny, my eyes quickly see that well-crafted package; it is so easy to open. It is so lovely to read a book or listen to a song, and to feel good about my salvation. On the other hand, if I let my soul be my guide, where would it take me? What new things would suddenly become visible to me, if I saw beyond the safe and sanitary, tree-lined streets of Menlo Park?

LOVE WARRIOR

Tuesday, I was at home with a sick kid. After cancelling my appointments and plans, I suddenly had all this time I hadn’t planned on. So, I decided to start a book that all my friends have been reading, Love Warrior. Glennon Doyle Melton holds nothing back, in writing about her life and marriage. As things fell apart, Christians were anything but helpful. In the excerpt below, she’s at church with her daughter, when the judgment from folks there, revealed the gulf between our God and our religion:

I look away, farther down the hall, and I see Tish in line with her Sunday school class. Tish sees me and her face lights up. In that instant, I realize that I owe nothing to the institution of Christianity – not my health, not my dignity, not my silence, not my martyrdom. I do not answer to this place, I answer to God, to myself and to the little girl in that line….She needs to learn from me that these four walls don’t contain God and that the people inside them don’t own God, that God loves her more than any institution God made for her. She will learn this only if I show her that I believe it myself.

I’ve been there. I’ve been that little girl, Tish. I am the collateral damage of a church that prioritized outsides over insides. Jesus doesn’t mince any words.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, so that the outside may become clean as well. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and every impurity.

Tomorrow, I head to belong. I can’t wait. I don’t want to be blind. I don’t want to be a clanging cymbal. I don’t want to be that well-meaning woman in the church. I don’t want a conference to be the beginning and the end. The world doesn’t need any more books, CD’s (is that old tech now, should we say MP3’s?), camps or conventions. The world needs us to just get OUT. I’m nearly done with Brandon Hatmaker’s book, A Mile Wide, where he writes:

We become so consumed with our model or way of church, protecting our beliefs and fighting over doctrine that we become distracted from what’s most important….the Kingdom is for sinners, not the righteous…although Christ died for us and offers us what we cannot earn, we still spend way too much time trying to appear like we earned it.

While he offers many tips for how to get out of our old beliefs and ways, two ideas stuck with me. The first one, he learned from a friend, Alan, who regularly helped the homeless. Alan, a church leader like Brandon, told him, “My job is to get as many people out of the pews and onto the streets of our city as I can, because I know it will change them.” The second tip is that a deeper faith is rooted in trusted relationships…maybe like the relationships born over coffee and croissants, where families figure out how they can make the ‘love God + love others’ equation a reality in their lives.

I may love to dream big, of working with the celebrities of the world. Heck, Sheryl Sandberg’s kids go to the same school as mine. And, you can be sure that my ego sometimes whispers, that maybe I should try to find a way to get my ideas to her or see if I can get connected to her. (For the record, I’m a huge fan of hers!) But, that never seemed to be the way Jesus went about things….He almost always seemed to ‘go small’….to pursue hearts and minds, one at a time…to start with the people that are right in front of you.

This year, I’m kinda all over the map. The homeless, low-income schools, my kids’ schools, a myriad of roles at church….and, now, a Christian women’s conference. I’m trying it all….including, blogging. And, I hope that the blogging never comes across as bragging. Dear God, help me – if it does. The blog is about accountability. It is about documenting this journey, and letting others into the messiness. I’m trying to see what faith actually looks like outside of the church. If we are talking about belonging, I no longer want to belong to a cultural Christian club. Rather, I think God is asking whether I am making space so the hurting, messy world can belong to me and I to it…whether I let my heart be broken, so that out of the pieces I may find how I’m supposed to live out my Micah 6:8 life.

It turns out, the real fixer upper is me.

P.S.

To the beautiful women I get to spend this weekend with, let me speak to you. Let’s have fun. We are hard-working mama’s who deserve a weekend away. And, many of you inspire me with the way you’ve oriented your lives around helping those in need. So, I’m kinda speaking to the choir. But, let’s collectively commit to letting this weekend be the beginning of something bigger! – Love, Dayna